Aphaenogaster mersa

Aphaenogaster mersa is an extinct species of ant in the subfamily Myrmicinae known from a pair of Middle Eocene fossils found in Europe. A. mersa is one of three species in the ant genus Aphaenogaster to have been noted from fossils found in Baltic amber by William Morton Wheeler.

Aphaenogaster mersa

Wheeler, 1915 · Public Domain · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
AphaenogasterPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At most 3.9 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 37.71 Mya and 33.9 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Eocene — about 2 of 2 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 0 of 2 occurrences38–38 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences38–37 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences37–37 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences37–37 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences37–37 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences37–37 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences37–37 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences37–36 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences36–36 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences36–36 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences36–36 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences36–36 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences36–36 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences36–35 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences35–35 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences35–35 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences35–35 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences35–35 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences35–35 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences35–35 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences35–34 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences34–34 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences34–34 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences34–34 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences38.21 Mya33.4 Mya

2 occurrences of Aphaenogaster mersa on record, most of them in the Eocene. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

2 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Aphaenogaster mersa and its relatives

Eocene

Where Aphaenogaster mersa and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

1,095 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Aphaenogaster mersa, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

2 references

Each of the 2 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Aphaenogaster mersa

Credit
Wheeler, 1915
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Aphaenogaster mersa was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itAphaenogaster through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Wheeler 1915